SOLDIERS from the Guyana Defence Force (GDF) played key roles in the political assassination of Dr Walter Rodney and Grenada’s Prime Minister Maurice Bishop, political activist Tacuma Ogunseye testified yesterday in Georgetown. 

The two most vicious political assassinations in the history of the English-speaking Caribbean are those of Rodney and Bishop.
Ogunseye told the international Presidential Commission probing the death of Dr Rodney that the GDF acted under the direction of the dictatorship Government of the People’s National Congress (PNC).
In testimony before the Walter Rodney Commission of Inquiry, Ogunseye said the “repressive regime” of the PNC authoritarian State employed GDF soldiers in clandestine operations, even beyond Guyana’s shores, in Grenada, “to effect regime change there”.
On Monday, another witness, Robert Allan Gates, had testified that then Army Chief, Major General (retired) Norman McLean and top Police Intelligence brass, the late Laurie Lewis, instructed GDF soldier Gregory Smith to assassinate Dr Rodney with an electronic explosive device that a mystery Russian KGB espionage agent, who worked as a Consultant to the corrupt PNC regime, supplied.
The two political assassinations that rocked the calm pastoral peace of the Caribbean in the 1980’s reverberate through history, with the ricocheting impact echoing to affect Guyana today.
Soldiers from the GDF acted in sinister plots to execute devious political plans in Grenada and Guyana in the 1980’s, Ogunseye told the international Presidential Commission.
In Guyana, on June 13, 1980, a bomb blast on the streets of Georgetown resulted in the assassination of world famous Guyanese scholar, Dr Rodney, and in Grenada on October 19, 1983, Prime Minister Bishop was shot and killed in a coup.
Ogunseye revealed to the Commission of Inquiry at the High Court building in Georgetown yesterday that the “repressive regime” of the PNC Government employed GDF soldiers to train Grenadian personnel who assassinated Bishop.
GDF soldier, Gregory Smith, planted the bomb that killed Dr Rodney, several witnesses have testified at the Commission. Ogunseye testified that “circumstantial evidence” shows the “repressive regime” of the dictatorial PNC Government plotted a dark political conspiracy and assassinated Dr Rodney.
Evidence of the vicious political “repression” under the PNC Government that caused Guyana to rank with Haiti as the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere continues to paint a dramatic saga of high level deception, political intrigue and dark conspiracies to murder Guyanese citizens. Ogunseye’s testimony now widens the interest to include a Caribbean leader.
Guyanese suffered under the “repressive regime” of the PNC dictatorship Government, and the Working People’s Alliance (WPA) wanted “regime change” through “open insurrection and revolution”, Ogunseye told the Commission.
Ogunseye, an Executive member of the WPA, said he acted as a top confidante of Dr Rodney and Dr Rupert Roopnarine, with the three forming an inner core Security Committee within the WPA. The Security Committee worked to nullify growing threats that the PNC dictatorship wanted to “crack down” on the WPA leadership.
Ogunseye said the “massive electoral fraud” that saw the PNC Government steal the 1973 national elections through blatant vote rigging left the WPA feeling that only “open insurrection and revolution” could bring down the dictatorship.
By 1980, when the PNC Government launched a nation-wide referendum to overhaul the Guyana Constitution and entrench dictatorial powers in the hands of the Government, with the PNC party declared as paramount, the WPA felt no electoral process would bring about “regime change”.
Leader of the PNC Government, Prime Minister Forbes Burnham, wanted to hang on to political power at all cost and by any means, Ogunseye said, noting that he feels Burnham, although a “great Guyanese”, suffered from two “characteristics”: a thirst for power, so that once he gained power he would never lose it, since “he felt no need to change regime every five years through elections”; and “he was a vicious politician” who repressed those he perceived to be his enemies.
Dressed in fashionable African garb, the veteran political leader appeared confident and spoke with a clear voice, reading several segments of his Witness Statement that he supplied to the Commission.
President Donald Ramotar convened the Commission to probe the death, 34 years ago, of Dr Rodney, whose widow Dr Particia Rodney, and three children welcomed the probe, along with academics and scholars from around the world, particularly Africa.
The Commission has become the topic of conversation across the Guyanese nation, and the Guyanese Diaspora tunes in to live streaming coverage online from the National Communications Network (NCN).
For the first time, Guyanese hear of how the PNC dictatorship reduced Guyana to a place of dark political intrigues involving a religious cult operated by a fugitive from US justice, and the commandeering of State agencies and institutions to carry out the personal wishes of paranoid power players of the PNC party, declared to be paramount, “even above the State”, Ogunseye said.
Yesterday’s hearings for the first time implicated the autocratic PNC Government in a Caribbean-wide political conspiracy, and Ogunseye’s assertion that the PNC Government commandeered GDF soldiers to train Grenada’s insurrectionists to assassinate Prime Minister Bishop and execute regime change in Grenada, could raise concern and interest across the Caribbean in what dark plots actually transpired in Guyana under the PNC dictatorship.
Head of State of the PNC Government, Forbes Burnham, Ogunseye said, saw himself “as the star, the only star”, and exercised this in his ambition to play leading roles on the international stage, and frequently took center stage at the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), the Commonwealth and CARICOM.
In fact, Burnham may have seen Dr Rodney as a rival to his status as this “star”, Ogunseye said.
While the PNC authoritarian State saw the WPA as an eminent and dangerous threat to its hold on political power, the WPA avoided resorting to violence, Ogunseye said. He said violence was only a last resort, to be used if necessary. “No violence for the sake of violence,” he told the Commision.
Testimony at the Commission has revealed how the WPA infiltrated the GDF and the security forces to gather soldiers, Police and other State officers within its ranks.
Ogunseye said the WPA wanted an “open insurrection and open revolution, similar to what happened in Iran and elsewhere”. He said the WPA plotted an open revolt against the dictatorship PNC State, and so sought to include the GDF and Police Force, and the other arms of the security Forces, in the insurrection.
The Opposition party wanted to foment a national popular revolt against the dictatorship PNC Government, he said.
However, the WPA leaders suspected that the PNC Government had infiltrated the WPA, and so started a programme of supplying “misinformation” to the Police and intelligence arms of the dictatorial PNC State. “We suspected we were also receiving misinformation,” Ogunseye said, noting that although the leaders discussed safety of each other, they did not realise Dr Rodney’s assassination was imminent.
He told the Commission that the WPA possessed several “walkie talkies” and he was aware that Dr Rodney was working with someone whom he did not know to tamper with the communication devices so they could be used as explosives. He denied that the WPA or Dr Rodney ever plotted or planned to attack the Georgetown Prisons at Camp Street, Georgetown, an allegation that the PNC Government made against Dr Rodney as its explanation of why the bomb blew up in his lap.
Ogunseye said that from “circumstantial evidence” it is clear that the dictatorship PNC Government and its State arms plotted, conspired and executed the attack that assassinated Dr Rodney.
Commission Chairman, Sir Richard Cheltenham of Barbados, and members Seenath Jairam of Trinidad and Tobago and Jacqueline Samuel-Brown of Jamaica, listened to Ogunseye’s testimony with keen attention, seeking clarification now and again.
Sir Cheltenham asked Ogunseye to standby to resume the witness box tomorrow, as today ex-Army pilot Gerry Gouveia takes the stand in a much-anticipated testimony.
Testimony at the Commission continues to point to the Army and Police as arms of the corrupt authoritarian PNC State that executed the assassination of Dr Rodney, under the dictatorial direction of the PNC Government.
Gouveia could shed more light on this dark conspiracy at today’s hearing.

Tacuma Ogunseye said the “massive electoral fraud” that saw the PNC Government steal the 1973 national elections through blatant vote rigging left the WPA feeling that only “open insurrection and revolution” could bring down the dictatorship.
Ogunseye revealed to the Commission of Inquiry at the High Court building in Georgetown yesterday that the “repressive regime” of the PNC Government employed GDF soldiers to train Grenadian personnel who assassinated Grenada’s Prime Minister Maurice Bishop. GDF soldier, Gregory Smith, planted the bomb that killed Dr Rodney, several witnesses have testified at the Commission. Ogunseye testified that “circumstantial evidence” shows the “repressive regime” of the dictatorial PNC Government plotted a dark political conspiracy and assassinated Dr Rodney.